Hendrik Mattern1, Alessandro Sciarra1, Frank Godenschweger1, Daniel Stucht1, Falk Lüsebrink1, and Oliver Speck1,2,3,4
1Department of Biomedical Magnetic Resonance, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany, 2Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology, Magdeburg, Germany, 3Center for Behavioral Brain Sciences, Magdeburg, Germany, 4German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, Magdeburg, Germany
Synopsis
At 7T, venous saturation and magnetization transfer for Time of Flight (ToF) angiography cannot be applied directly due to the increased specific absorption rate. Additionally, motion artifacts can degrade the image quality. A sequence with prospective motion correction (PMC) and sparse saturation was implemented to overcome these challenges. In vivo ultra-high resolution ToF angiograms were acquired, providing dramatically improved level of detail and image quality if PMC and sparse saturation is used. Thus, the proposed sequence unleashes the full potential of ToF angiography at 7T.Introduction
At 7T, increased SNR and prolonged T1 relaxation times
1 enable ultra-high resolution Time of Flight (ToF) angiography
2. Nevertheless, with higher B0 fields, the specific absorption rate (SAR) increases too. Thus venous saturation (SAT) and magnetization transfer (MT) - commonly used at 1.5T and 3T to improve the contrast - cannot be applied directly. Additionally, higher spatial resolutions and therefore longer scan durations increase the likelihood of motion artifacts. In this study VERSE
3 and sparse saturation
4 are used to reduce SAR and enable SAT and MT. Prospective motion correction (PMC) is used to prevent motion artifacts (more details in
5).
Methods
One healthy male subject,
(after written consent) was scanned with a Nova 32-channel head coil at 7T
(Siemens, Erlangen). A 3D ToF sequence was adapted to face the described
challenges. Full brain angiograms without (product sequence) and with PMC and
sparse saturation (SAT every 10th read-out and with VERSE; MT in k-space
center/10% of read-outs) were acquired with TR/TE=50/6.63 ms; 25° TONE pulse;
FOV 196x147x78 mm³ (0.25 mm
3 voxel size); 4 slabs with 25% overlap and 96
slices per slab; GRAPPA 3; scan duration 48:05.
Additionally, 2 slabs
with 80 slices and 0.20 mm
3 voxel size of the Circle of Willis were acquired
(scan duration 1:11:02). Due to limited online reconstruction memory GRAPPA 2 was
necessary. Therefore, 2 averages were acquired. The study was approved by the
local ethics committee.
MATLAB 2015b, FSL and
MeVisLab 2.7 were used for data analysis.
Results
The axial Maximum Intensity Projections (MIP) with and without sparse saturation and PMC are shown in Fig. 1. PMC improved the image quality and allows to see more details (subject motion is shown in Tab. 1). Sparse saturation suppressed the veins efficiently. Extra-cranial arteries were also clearly depicted (see Fig. 2). In the 0.20 mm
3 axial MIP (see Fig. 3) very small vessels, e.g. branches of the basal artery is clearly visible, but the veins are not fully suppressed. The Circle of Willis with both resolutions is shown in Fig. 4.
Discussion
Motion correction and sparse saturation enabled ultra-high resolution ToF angiography at 7T. Intra- and extra-cranial arteries are depicted very detailed in the MIPs. SAT and MT can be applied at 7T if sparse saturation and VERSE are used
4. The subject moved considerably during the extended scan time. The motion range was about 50-times larger than the voxel size leading to noticeable artifacts. Such inevitable motion artifacts were successfully prevented by PMC. Thus, the image quality improved considerably in comparison to the uncorrected scan. Segmentation of the brain led to the creation of data sets showing the intra-cranial arteries for neurological diagnosis, or showing the extra-cranial arteries for diagnosis of e.g. Horton’s disease. Compared to the 0.25 mm
3 data, the higher resolution 0.20 mm
3 example provides a dramatically improved level of detail. Due to higher vessel SNR (2 averages and GRAPPA 2 vs. GRAPPA 3) in the 0.20mm
3 scan more frequent SAT may be required to suppress fully the veins. With offline image reconstruction even higher resolutions can be acquired in the future.
Conclusion
The proposed sequence with adapted SAR management and highly accurate prospective motion correction unleashes the full potential of ToF angiography at 7T leading to unprecedented high effective resolution.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Sebastian Schmitter for his support. This work was supported by the NIH, grant number 1R01-DA021146 and FP7 Marie Curie Actions of the European Commission (FP7-PEOPLE-2012-ITN-316716).References
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